Greetings from the BRRR – that’s Bathroom Renovation Recovery Room. Daniel and I worked all day yesterday rebuilding a wall that we had to partially dismantle in order to remove the offending tub. I suspect a “real” carpenter could have knocked it out in a couple of hours, but we learn as we go. The end result is a wall much sturdier than the one we started with, before removing the tub. All that remains is for us to get the tub in place and nail it to the wall, put down some roofing felt, cover it with plywood, install the linoleum, install sinks, re-plumb the tub, install ceramic tile, paint walls, cleanup .

It sound like a lot, I admit. At the rate we’re going, I figure we should be done before school starts in September.

I guess I should take some pictures for those of you who would really, really like to know what we’re dealing with. I’m sure it’s the majority of you; maybe 3-4 of you.

A couple of days ago Diane talked her Mom into going over to the neighbor’s house to poach their roses. In their defense, the house is empty and is being prepped for sale. A guy comes around once a week to mow the yard, but he doesn’t do anything with the climbing rose-bush which reaches to the upper deck and spurts out dozens of blossoms. Deer love them. Here’s what it looked like when they made their break for freedom …

Again, in their defense, they trimmed the roses up very nicely. We had one of those roses on our house when we moved in and it was taking over the upper deck so I cut it down to the ground. It grew back, but I won’t let it get taller than six feet. We argue a lot when I’m mowing around it and I usually wind up with new wounds from pushing it’s arms away as I mow past it. It’s almost like black berry vines that can snag on pretty much anything and leave memorable slashes on arms and legs. I’ve learned it’s not wise to trim anything with thorns while wearing shorts and with bare hands. It’s just not healthy.

Speaking of health … I have another dentist appointment tomorrow morning at 0800. Kinda early for that kind of thing, but I like to get to folks like that early in the day before they meet any mean people and are fresh. When you make afternoon appointments it’s a crapshoot as to what kind of attitude you’ll encounter. Normally, they are all professional to the end of their work days, but I’m not taking a chance of having someone snap when they have my mouth pried open and they’re using extremely sharp tools. For my own wellbeing, I always check the tools for rust before they go to work. This does, of course, please them no end.

Now for the downer … I got the results of my last retinopathy test and learned that I probably have diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of blindness in the USA. I just learned of this today because we didn’t pick our mail up yesterday. There’s no real danger of me going blind any time soon, as long as I obey the rules and watch my BS level. Diane tells me I’m full of BS most of the time, but I have a meter for that and my BS levels are very low compared to life long diabetics. Those are Type 1 folks. I’m just Type 2. I never get 1st place.

Today was very pleasant. Not too hot, not too cold. We took Diane’s Mom, Jean, to church at 0930 then Diane drove us to Longview, Washington where we had lunch at Sizzler. We always get the all you can eat salad bar because it includes dead chicken. I really like dead chicken. Especially legs. This Sizzler has only legs and arms. They have no idea where the rest of the chicken goes. It’s possible, I suppose, that there’s a rehabilitation center somewhere for legless and armless chickens, but I doubt it. Considering the size of the chicken legs, you’d think they came from either an olympic chicken weight lifter, or really old chickens that just keeled over because they got too fat. They look like they came from turkey’s, but they are definitely chickens. Maybe they’re from the Amazon – they have big things down there. Regardless, they are very tasty and it only takes 3-4 to fill me up. To give you an idea how un-normal that is, I can eat about 12 pieces of a normal size dead chicken. Honest, I can. Ask Diane.

I hope everyone is enjoying whatever type of weather you’re having. If it gets too radical, one way or another, you can always visit Oregon to get refreshed.

Cheers.